Learning to code is still worthwhile
Learning to code is still worthwhile
July 6, 2026
Is there any point to learn to code in the age of vibe coding?
Literally no one is uttering what we thought were the immortal lines “learn to
code,” right? I don't think that sentence has been spoken for many months now
in Silicon Valley
Making Sense with Sam Harris #481
Making Sense with Sam Harris #481
I'm the founder of Val Town, a "Silicon Valley startup"
for writing and deploying code, and I still believe everyone should learn to
code.
Sam is right that “learn to code” is no longer trotted out as a quick path out
of poverty. The ability to string together two lines of JavaScript no longer
guarantees you a 6-figure-salary.
This is also true of math, literature, science, or any of the liberal arts. Like
those, coding is worthwhile to learn on educational grounds, not merely
vocational ones.
1. Code is possibly the best medium to learn mathematics, and meta-skills for learning in general
1. Code is possibly the best medium to learn mathematics, and meta-skills for learning in general
I grew up hating math. I stumbled into
an after-school program that taught programming. Through
it, I fell in love with math, and excelled at it beyond my wildest dreams.
Later, I learned this experience masterminded by a math & education researcher
named Seymour Papert. He wanted children to learn math like they learn to speak:
through exploration instead of instruction. He started from the assumption that
we all know it’s impossible to be congenitally “bad at French”: if you grow up
in France, you’ll learn it. So Papert tried to create “Mathland”, a place where
anyone could grow up “speaking math.”
The Mathland he created was the LOGO programming language, where you can draw
pictures by giving instructions to a turtle on the screen with ink on its feet.
I recently made a version of it you can
try out online. Can you figure out how to draw a
circle?
Through learning to program, I learned so many meta-skills, like debugging,
composition, and logic. Most importantly, I learned that there’s literally
nothing that cannot be learned. These meta-learnings of programming may explain
the unreasonable competence (and arrogance) of computer scientists: why we think
we can solve all the world’s problems – even those far outside our original
domains.
2. Code is a beautiful form of creative expression, as rich as literature or music
2. Code is a beautiful form of creative expression, as rich as literature or music
Coding is a delightful activity that combines the creativity of writing with the
precision of mathematics and the instant feedback loops of a video game. It
helps you sharpen your desires into precise language that computers can carry
out.
It’s remarkably close to casting spells. I think of Hermione correcting Ron –
"it's levi-O-sa” – as a good model of what it’s like learning the arcane syntax
of code. But once you master that, “You are a wizard, Harry.” You can encode
what you imagine into an arcane language that a computer will make real. We all
can be wizards.
LLMs can write English as well as they can write code, yet we have no fear for
the relevance of humanities. The same intuition holds true for code.
Many dismiss code in the same way they dismiss legalese as inscrutable, tedious
details. But like law, code is what our world runs on, and an elegant line of
code can literally change the world. Think of e=mc2 or “we hold these truths to
be self-evident” if you doubt the power and majesty of precise formal language.
And finally, programming is simply fun. It's a joy. My calling in life is to
spread the joy of programming, so if you have any inkling of interest in
learning to code yourself, shoot me an email – steve@val.town.
The dream of universal code literacy – or the "real computer revolution” – lives
on, even in the age of LLMs.